CAREER:

Primary schoolteacher in County Mayo, Ireland, 1960; Dublin Corp., Dublin, Ireland, clerical officer, 1960-65; St. Joseph's College, Sasse, Buea, Cameroon, housemaster, games master, and head of English department, 1968-70; Southall College of Technology, Middlesex, England, lecturer in physical education and football coach, 1971-72; Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, England, research assistant, 1972-74, senior lecturer, 1974-79, principal lecturer, 1979-88, reader, 1986-88, professor of sports science, 1988—, head of Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences, 1988-91, director of School of Human Sciences, 1992-95, and Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, 1997—, coach of Gaelic Football Team, 1989-95. Visiting lecturer or professor at Central School of Art and Design, Ahmadu Bello University, Tsukuba University, Fukui University, University of California, Berkeley and Davis, University of Louvain, Technical University of Lisbon, University of Hong Kong, University of Belgrade, and other institutions; organizer of conferences and symposia. International Working Group on Science and Football, chair, 1986—; World Commission of Sports Biomechanics, member of council, 1986-2000; European College of Sport Science, founding member, 1996, member of board of directors, 1996-2003, chair of scientific committee, 2003-07; World Commission of Science and Sports, president, 2000—; consultant to British Olympic Association and Irish Sports Council. National Institute of Medical Research, technician in Human Physiology Division, summer, 1971; British Amateur Athletic Board, qualified as coach, 1971; accredited physiologist, British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, 1992—; registered physiologist, British Olympic Association, 1997; coach of Cameroon National Athletics Team, 1968-70, Cameroon Orienteering Association, 1969-70, and Liverpool Polytechnic Harriers Athletic Club, 1971-92; Penang International Marathon, member of medical base, 1988; also coach for Olympic competitions and other individual events; participant in football, handball, soccer, cross-country and marathon track and field events, and in orienteering.

MEMBER:

International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education, International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry (founding member; vice president, 2000-04), European Association of Football Team Physicians, Ergonomics Society (fellow), British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (fellow; founding member; ex-officio member of executive committee, 1983-93; chair, 1994-96), British Association of Sport and Medicine, Institute of Biology, Society for Back Pain Research (member of executive committee, 1986-89), Football Association (honorary member of Coaching Association).

SIDELIGHTS:

Thomas Reilly told CA: "I derive a lot of satisfaction from putting my thoughts, ideas, and understanding into written form. Besides, I have a professional commitment to passing on my knowledge and experience to others, particularly students and practitioners of the scientific aspects of sport.

"My enjoyment of the process of writing and communicating ideas stems from reading the works of the great Irish literary artists, notably W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge. They worked at their craft and chiseled out their material until it shone. Similarly, reading the works of Samuel Beckett was an encouragement to strip the text to render its meaning clear. These skills are transferable to scientific writing.

"My personal style is to determine first the overall structure of a piece and produce a broad outline of its content. I then write freely, later returning to fine-tune the text with references and evidence. Illustrations are chosen as I go along. The first full draft is only marginally changed when the text is committed to word processing. Only rarely do I cut and paste.

"While I have occasionally contributed to local historical pieces, my main writing is in the sports sciences."

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